Remember
by CocoaWeasley
Summary: When S.H.I.E.L.D. enlists a new young agent, she has a lot to hide and little to show for it. They want to know whether she's an asset worth training. All she wants to know is the truth. OC fic, will contain Avengers and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. characters/events. Ships will include CapHill, Pepperoni, Huntingbird, and more. Rated for violence in later chapters.
1. Prologue

She stares at the man in front of her, momentarily frozen.

She shouldn't be doing this anymore.

It should be second nature by now.

Lying.

Shouldn't it?

She wants so desperately to tell the truth once and for all.

Such a simple question.

He frowns, hand still hovering uncertainly in midair.

"Did you hear me?"

 _Yes._

"What's your name?"

There it is again. That question.

 _I don't remember._

 _I_ can't _remember._

But he can't know that. No one can.

"I'm Clint." he repeats.

 _I know._

She just wants to say it. To rid herself of these lies, these tricks, this overwhelming misery.

 _You want to know who I am?_

 _Nobody._

She just wants to figure it out herself.

 _Who am I?_

5 years.

5 years of nothing.

No identity.

She tries, she really does, but all she can ever remember is the shadow of a smile, someone wrapping their arms around her, telling her that everything will turn out alright. Then ears ringing. Smoke. The name of a town on a sign buried in rubble. Dark rooms. Strangers. And yet she can remember everything from then onwards in frightening clarity. Basements and alleys, always at night. More, but always the things that she wishes she could forget.

And now she's been standing in this hallway for much too long, with the walls pressing in, threatening to consume her. And this, all of it, it's just too much.

He's still standing there with his hand outstretched.

She's still standing there trying to remember something, anything.

No past.

 _No future_ , says a shrewd voice in her head.

Here's a chance to make one.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

As if.

And more than the memories, names flit through her mind. Always just out of reach, never quite in her grasp.

Except for one.

5 years, and she still can't remember her own last name.

But she remembers her first.

And what better place to start?

So she ignores the doubt. Shakes his hand. Answers the seemingly impossible question.

Still flinching away ever so slightly when their hands meet.

Still not quite making eye contact.

Still struggling to make her voice heard over the clamor of noises coming from behind closed doors in the otherwise empty corridor.

Quiet, hoarse, uncertain.

"Lila."

Still far, far, from anywhere near perfect.

But it's a start.

 **A/N: Hope you liked it! This is just a preview of the story, future chapters will be longer. Review!**

 **Amazingly beautiful cover art goes to the talented Jade Li.**


	2. Kindness

Accidents happen, right?

At least, that's what Lila was trying to tell herself as she walked down the fluorescent lit hallway as fast as she possibly could without looking too suspicious.

She never should've come with these people. At the time, she had figured that anything was better than the previous hellhole, but the people at this facility were just too damn nice. Not quite nice in the normal sense of the word, but too...understanding.

It was all an accident, and she was going to fix it.

She stumbled along, attempting to find her way back to Commander Hill's office. Luckily, she had a surprisingly efficient memory, better than most. Short-term, that is. Apparently that's what happens when you don't have much to remember in the first place. If she couldn't remember anything before the age of 12 or 13, she could most definitely remember anything and everything after.

She needed to get out of this place.

That man - Clint? - was still standing back there, looking utterly confused, and she had an odd yearning to go back and explain.

But not here. Not now.

Not quite yet.

 **. . . . .**

 _4 years earlier..._

There was a girl outside.

At first Ellen thought it was just a bundle of rags, donations left out and long forgotten. She was busy, with so many workers hurrying through the cold, dreary city, wanting a cup of coffee or fresh-baked pastry for some minuscule amount of warmth.

But now that the rush had finally come to a halt, she could clearly see that there was a young girl outside sitting on the curb, silent and still. Ellen made up her mind right then and there. After all, the poor thing seemed to be barely the age of her youngest son.

Clutching a small paper bag with a fresh croissant in it, the portly woman hurried outside, shivering as the cold San Francisco fog hit her exposed skin.

Lila looked up, startled, sensing a presence behind her. Before the woman from the coffee shop could say anything, the girl took in the situation. The pitiful yet bewildered expression. The paper bag. Of course.

The woman, (Ellen, according to her name tag), seemed rather speechless, and her mouth stumbled over a few words.

"I, well, I was thinking maybe-" Her voice gradually dropped off, and she just held out the bag.

Rather amused at the woman's confusion, Lila considered refusing the food, but as she thought of it, her stomach growled in protest, and she couldn't bring herself to turn it away.

This was the part she hated most. Accepting charity. All these damn good people.

But Lila stood up, and she took the bag from the woman's outstretched hand. She stammered a few quick thank-yous, and before Ellen could say any more, Lila clutched the warm bag and the tattered paperback book she had found the day before to her chest, and went on her way.

 _Thank god it doesn't snow here_ , thought Lila as she walked away. She was making her way back to a small neighborhood park, in one of the quieter parts of the city. But mostly she was thinking one thing as she slowly ate the treat: _Maybe people aren't all bad._

Lost in a whirl of thoughts, she didn't notice a worker, presumably late, hurrying down the street as fast as he could, and he bumped into her, enough that she fell backwards and landed on the curb, badly stinging her hands and dropping both the croissant and an old tattered copy of _The Book Thief_ , but apparently not enough to warrant an apology from the man, who was already half a block away.

It was, however, enough to make her realize as she picked up the paperback and stared at the dirty and wet pastry on the ground, that even if there were one or two kinder coffee shop owners out there, most of the world simply didn't care.

There was no place in the world for people like her.

 **A/N: That's it for this chapter, I've actually decided that this story might have chapters on the shorter side. That way I have more time, and you guys will probably get more updates. :) I know this chapter seems completely unrelated to the last, but I promise the next one will make more sense. Review!**

 **Also, thanks to GabycatStark13 for the first review of the story. (Thanks for pointing out the typo also. To answer your question, Bobbi will be in the story much later, but it will be Bobbi/Hunter, not Clint.)**


End file.
